The White House this week released five games that remix retro gameplay with Trump administration themes. One, titled Build the Wall, has players stack pieces that look like Tetris blocks to form a barrier while pixel-style extraterrestrial figures move in, with on-screen text urging players to "protect the border from the coming horde."
On X Friday, The Tetris Company distanced itself: "P.S. The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of 'Build the Wall,'" it wrote, adding, "P.P.S. We take copyright infringement very seriously." It also posted, "At Tetris, we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them."
Another title, Rio Run, echoes the old mobile game Snake and shows a suited figure with thinning white hair tasked with picking up "every crosser," with each pickup increasing a deportee score. Additional titles reference the Trump administration's Make America Healthy Again standards as well as the Trump Accounts savings program. To promote the site, the White House used social posts featuring animations that mimic Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo loading screens to debut Arcade.gov. One animation remade Sega Corp.'s logo into "MAGA," a nod to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan.
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Bloomberg News sought comment from Microsoft, Xbox, Sony, PlayStation and Nintendo, but none replied. Sega said it had received the inquiry yet offered no comment. Tetris now joins artists and rights holders objecting to the administration's social posts that used their material without consent, among them Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter and Kids Can Press, publisher of Franklin the Turtle.
